Church outside the ship.

April 7th and 8th I was able to meet up with Leona again! Saturday we went out to Dinner with Dennis Hilman and two local pastors. Then Sunday we went to a church out a ways into the bush.. Or so it felt to me. I had not traveled that far in Lome before. So it was nice to get out in the country a little bit. Dennis was speaking at the church and Leona taught Sunday school for the kids(One of the day workers from the dental clinic came with us and he translated for Leona!). It was real fun to be there and see what our missionaries are doing! In the Sunday school there were about 30 kids. Probably ages 11 and under. Leona started by teaching the kids a song in English then with Mawuli's help, taught the young kids about Jonah. After that she taught us all how to make Origami whales! We enjoyed our time spent together! After church I had lunch with Leona , Dennis, Mawuli and one of the pastors. Then Dennis and Leona left for Ghana so they dropped me off at the ship.
It was wonderful to be with familiar people for a little while. :)

The next week at the Dental clinic was very busy! We had the dentist that was the Chief Dental Officer for Mercy ships working with us(he is no longer long term with MS but comes once a year). He was with the dental team for two weeks and it was great to have him! We were able to see a lot of patients with more critical needs since he was with us. We saw several patients with large swellings that needed to be drained. And we did many interesting surgeries. I won't go into details here. :) But it was all new to me! So yes.. More experiences!

On the 18th I had a wonderful treat! It was my birthday! So I requested the day off to watch some surgeries on board the ship. I started off the day with breakfast with a Birthday buddy. Then went up to the pool on deck 8 to spend some time reading. After that headed down to the hair salon and had my hair cut! After hair cut I sat around in the cafe chatting with some friends.When lunch came  around it was so nice to finally get to eat lunch on the ship! They served a wonderful lunch of Chicken fingers with honey mustard and rice!! Soo. yes! Great start to the day! THEN... I was able to go in to the operating rooms and watch two different surgeries. I had to don the Mercy ships scrubs, OR booties, surgeons cap and goggles to enter the OR. Quite an interesting thing! I will perhaps never have a birthday like this one! 
 After viewing the surgeries I had supper with some friends and  then went up to the crew galley to make a bunny cake! When I came down to the cafe  my friends had set up a little banner saying" Happy Birthday Karen"! It was really sweet! I think through out the whole day I was sung to 4 times! After demolishing the cake my friends and I went to French class! We learned some valuable things that would have been helpful a LONG time ago. But oh well! Now I know..  Best Birthday ever!

Ok.. More stuff happened but I'm needing some sleep and I'll be able to write  more and post more pictures later.